6.2 Tourism

Dublin Airport is of high importance to the Irish tourism industry with 80% of visitors to Dublin having travelled via the Airport. The city’s growing reputation as a host for conferences (the capital ranked as the 13th most popular destination worldwide by the International Congresses and Conventions Association) is in significant part due to its improving air connectivity.

The most recently available tourism data indicates that of the over 9.5 million visitors to Ireland in 2018, almost 70% of these (7 million visitors) entered and left through Dublin Airport, equating to 14 million (arriving and departing) passenger journeys. These visitors travel not just to Dublin (where 80% of visitors have arrived via the Airport) but throughout the island of Ireland, where 20% visit Northern Ireland and 40% other parts of the Republic.

In terms of visitor origins, the principal markets are:

UK 36%

USA 20.5%

Germany 8%

France 5.5%

Spain 4%

Tourism Ireland, working collaboratively with Fáilte Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB), has traditionally targeted nearly 75% of its budget on these core markets, but as the network of air connections from Dublin Airport has widened, they have begun to broaden their reach to include other destinations in: